It’s difficult not to smile when one hears some people claim that we’re much better now as a member of the EU than we were before we joined. After fifteen years of EU membership, God forbid that we would have been less well off than before.

The real question is: Would we have been better than we are today outside than inside the Union?

Before immediately making the claim that yes, of course, we are much better inside! – it might be useful to first agree as to how this “being better” is to be evaluated.

For instance, the funds that Malta obtained from the EU budget to finance projects get repeated mentions. But then the funds that Malta pays into the EU treasury never – or almost never – get a mention. According to next year’s budget, that payment will reach 130 million euros in 2020.

So, economic progress too gets mentioned – but how is it being assessed? If one considers for instance foreign trade, the deficit we used to have in the commercial balance with the EU has ballooned.

Equally, social progress gets mentioned  – but again how should it be looked at? Should account be taken say, of the fact that food prices have risen at one of the highest rates in Europe?

It’s very easy to conclude something if one discards all that might point to a different conclusion.

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DUTIES OF A PRIME MINISTER

There are moments when in the execution of his duties a Prime Minister needs to shoulder an enormous burden of responsibility. An outside observer finds it easy to comment even while very frequently  not aware of the full “story” or is only prepared to see it through a given perspective.

I believe that it is right to observe maximum prudence at such moments. Before indulging in facile talk, we have to let the “story” develop completely and to an end,  once  all the facts have become available.

Of course, the overall condition must be that all relevant facts are truly exposed and without any delays that remain unexplained.

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WALK, TALK, WRITE...

It has beome normal in Brussels – but in Malta as well – wherever you go around the city’s streets, to meet people who seem to have gone a bit crazy because they’re talking to themselves. Then you realize they’re not doing that: they have a button stuck in their ears and are in the middle of a discussion with somebody at the other end of an invisible phone.

Or else, you see them walking forward while gazing down at a mobile on which they view what has reached them or finger it to send messages. Meanwhile, they keep on walking in a straight line or sideways, in the expectation that people coming from the opposite direction will make way for them.

More and more, people seem to be simulaneously living in a dual reality: one in which they are physically present, the other a “virtual” reality in which they talk or communicate with others located somewhere else. In this way we seem to be using our living time more effectively.

How true is this?  You walk the pavement without hearing anything of the street noise because of the buttons covering your ears. You cross a park without seeing any trees because you keep staring at the mobile screen...